Volcano Watch 2014

Clouds are forming over top of fault lines, meanwhile waters at the same latitude are dead quiet. I'm not asking anyone to believe me, or take my
word. I'm limited to what I can do on this computer, trapped in my own home. Most of you are not. I want others to do what I can not: GO LOOK.

Do not believe me. Do not trust me. Think for yourself. Do not let anyone else think for you.

Very basically (read the article for a proper breakdown) it seems geologists have identified that supervolcanoes have different eruptive triggers to
smaller volcanoes. They have discovered that volcanoes up to 500 cubic km (small volcanoes) erupt as we always assumed - a build up of pressure leads
to an eruption.

Supervolcanoes, it has been discovered, do not play by these rules. As the magma chambers are so vast, the pressure build up is nothing like as
intense. Instead, as the magma builds up, there is so much of it that the buoyancy of it cracks the rock / ground above the chamber, triggering an
eruption. In other words, many of the traditional eruptive indicators do not come into play for supervolcanoes.

I still haven't woken up properly yet, so am getting my head around this still!

I have to say though, while it clearly isn't worth worrying
about, if i lived by one i would still be panicking like mad every time i noticed a crack in the ground!

Authorities have extended a danger zone around a rumbling volcano in western Indonesia after it spewed blistering gas farther than expected.

National Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho says more than 50 eruptions on Saturday sent lava and searing gas tumbling out of Mount
Sinabung in North Sumatra province down the southeastern slopes up to 5 kilometers (3 miles) away.

He said the volcano's danger zone to the southeast was extended from five to seven kilometers (three to four miles) after the new eruption.

It was still spitting clouds of gas and lava as high as 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) on Sunday, but no casualties were reported.

More than 20,000 people have been evacuated from villages around the crater into several temporary shelters.

Looking more in to the connection between vulcanism and electricity, I have found the following paper recently published:

Eruption of subglacial volcanoes may lead to catastrophic floods and therefore early determination of the exact eruption site may be critical to
civil protection evacuation plans. Poor visibility due to weather or darkness often inhibit positive identification of exact eruption location for
many hours. However, because of the proximity and abundance of water in powerful explosive subglacial volcanic eruptions, they are probably always
accompanied by early lightning activity in the volcanic column.

They are using volcanic lighting strike locations to determine the exact location of the vent as all other means are not sufficient to make a close
enough approximation.

The best available data for the current analysis, Grímsvötn 2011, is shown in Figure 5. After only 30 min from the start of the eruption one
could have seen from the lightning data that the median location was 2‒3 km south of the correct location. With a simple wind correction the
estimate would indicate 2 km WSW of the 2004 site. After 3 hours the estimate would have indicated that the eruption site was about 1 km W of the 2004
site. Four hours into the eruption (at 22:00 UTC) the wind corrected estimates are all within 1 km of the actual eruption crater, see Figure
6.

From this, they are able to more accurately gauge the place where magma broke the surface.

Not sure if this belongs to volcano or earthquake thread, but there seems to be some activity in Langjökull (Long Glacier) in Iceland. The area is
volcanically relatively quiet compared to the rest of Iceland. There has only been 32 eruptions in the last 10 000 years. There has been thought to be
2 different volcanic systems or more under the glacier.

The volcano erupted last time around ~925 AD, so it has been quiet for very long time.

Quake swarm in Askja (Icelandic for caldera) volcano, Iceland! That is one of most famous volcanoes in Iceland, and one of most dangerous too. Its
located north from Vatnajökull.

The volcano became famous when it erupted in 1875 and caused ash catastrophe. It killed almost whole livestock in eastern Iceland and caused massive
emigration from Iceland. The eastern Iceland was pretty much poisoned after that, the land became useless for years.

In 2010 volcano expert Hazel Rymer said that the volcanic activity has clearly increased in Askja, and that eruption could be around the corner. In
2012 it was noticed that the caldera was completely free from ice, though it was April. There was clearly increased volcanic activity. After that the
area has been closed from public, because of the poisonous gases.

Askja erupted last time in 1961 when it was VEI-2 eruption. The 1875 eruption was VEI-5. So its hard to say how strong the next eruption will be.
There is no specific time between its eruptions, it has erupted: 1961, 1938, 1926, 1924, 1923, 1922, 1921, 1919, 1875, 1797 and 1300.

A little off topic , but Im still at an early stage of learning the science of earthquakes . Yesterday stumbled upon you graphs you made for
earthquake watch 2014. I was impressed that someone took the time to make such a detailed graph , now Im certainly going to monitor earthquake watch
very carefully in 2014 , what a great trustful site.

According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, the level of the Skaftá river at Sveinstindur and electrical conductivity both rose during
18-19 January indicating a glacial outburst flood (jokulhlaup), originating from Grímsvötn's western Skaftá ice cauldron. The jokulhlaup was
unconfirmed without visual observations, however. Flood waters peaked on 20 January and then began to subside on 21 January. The report noted that
floods in Skaftá source from two ice cauldrons formed by persistent geothermal activity beneath Vatnajökull. The cauldrons drain an average every
two years, producing floods of up to 1,500 cubic meters per second.

I don't think this means there's something bigger coming. It seems they let people back into the area. This eruption released the recent stress.
However, in a few weeks, we could be seeing something similar, or bigger. It seems to be could more active as time goes on. It does not appear to be
ebbing. I'm just noting that there was a recent new moon.

Saturday, Feb 01, 2014 Kavachi undersea volcano (Solomon Islands) erupts again The discolored water plume from Kavachi volcano (NASA Earth Observatory
image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data from the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Robert Simmon) The discolored water plume from Kavachi
volcano (NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data from the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Robert Simmon) A
submarine eruption is likely occurring at the submerged volcano. A NASA satellite image from 29 Jan shows a plume of discolored sea water swirling and
drifting from the location of the volcano. The discoloration is likely from suspended volcanic sediments (the fragmented lava) and gasses. Kavachi is
an undersea volcano on the southern edge of the Solomon Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It erupted dozens of times in the 20th century, often
breaking the water surface, only to be eroded back below the water line within a few months. Whether the new eruption will break the surface and
create another new island remains to be seen. Directly above the undersea peak, a bright patch is visible that suggests vigorously churning
water—but there is no sign that the eruption has broken the surface. (NASA)

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